Durand's Curse Quotes

“rule the Punjabis, intimidate the Sindhis, honour the Baluch and buy the Pashtun.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart

“The Pathan, who was projected as a wild beast in the British writing of the late nineteenth century, has an entirely different image in India. Here he is seen as a large-hearted man with a beard who hawks dry fruits from Afghanistan. It was one such kind old man who longs for his land and his child in Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Kabuliwala’.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart

“In each of these, there was initial turmoil. In some cases, mass migration and bloodshed had followed. But after the first few bitter months, people settled down to make new lives. Only the Pashtuns have remained unreconciled. Is it because the Pashtuns were, and are, poor? As Henry Miller said in the American context, ‘We have two American flags always: one for the rich and one for the poor. When the rich fly it, it means that things are under control; when the poor fly it, it means danger, revolution and anarchy.’ Alas, fate has handed the Pashtuns a poor flag.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart

“It is important to note here that Mortimer Durand tells the Amir right at the start of their negotiations that ‘for the future, the Persian text of all communications between the Government of India and the Amir would be regarded as binding.’ Despite this British undertaking, the Amir was made to sign only the English text of the Agreement on 12 November. But moral issues and broken promises did not unduly trouble Durand.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart

“When prejudice shapes policy, every move by the other side appears ominous.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart

“Afghanistan was not an end in itself; the jewel was India which had to be protected from the lusting Russian eyes. As J.R. Seeley noted, …we have the possession of India, and a leading interest in the affairs of all those countries which lie upon the route to India. This and this only involves us in that permanent rivalry with Russia. Two of the world’s greatest powers then, Victorian Britain and Czarist Russia, were engaged in this tournament of shadows; the so-called permanent rivalry which profited neither country. When they started in the beginning of nineteenth century they were 2,000 miles apart. Within a hundred years they were within sniffing distance of each other; some Russian positions were just about 20 miles away from India.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart

“M.C.A. Henniker. 1951. Memoirs of a Junior Officer. HMSO, p. 235. M.C.A. Henniker’s company was engaged in building a blockhouse on a hilltop overlooking the Khyber Pass. Pathans could have, but they did not stop the life-giving water supply to the British, yet the British army used poison gas on the Frontier Pathans in the early twentieth century. This was only to be expected because the British Manual of Military Law stated that the rules of war applied only to conflict ‘between civilized nations’. In fact, the Manual of 1914 clarified that ‘they do not apply in wars with uncivilized States and tribes’.”
― Rajiv Dogra, Durand's Curse: A Line Across the Pathan Heart